American business says farewell to arms

02/27/2018

Mass shooting on February 14 at a school in Florida led not only to a stormy public discussion and government plans to radically tighten arms law. In recent days, many US companies have terminated partnership programs with the National Rifle Association (NRA), whose members (more than 5 million Americans) can enjoy discounts for buying air tickets, car rental, buying insurance, issuing bank cards, etc.

Cory Doctorow

Last weekend, the National Rifle Association of the United States issued a statement on the growing public campaign #BoycottNRA and the severance of a number of partner programs. Within the program, more than 5 million members of the NRA could receive discounts and benefits for a variety of products and services, from air tickets to car rental and insurance.

The NRA statement says that "no loss of discounts will force us to give up the principle of protecting personal freedoms", referring to the right to possession of firearms, as recorded by the second amendment to the US Constitution.

Emotional statement of the NRA was caused by the fact that more and more large American companies began to break their joint programs with the NRA. So, last week the airline Delta announced termination of the discount program for members of the NRA, and United Airlines reported the waiver of discounts for flights of members of the association during the large meetings of the NRA. The termination of the discount program for the members of the association was announced by Enterprise Holdings, which owns three large auto rental networks - Enterprise, Alamo and National. A similar step was taken by auto rental companies Avis, Budget and Hertz.

The MetLife Insurance Corporation also announced the termination of the discount program for NRA members, and the large regional bank First National Bank of Omaha (assets $ 17 billion) said it will not issue co-branding cards Visa and NRA. At the end of last week, the manufacturer of antivirus and security software, Symantec, said that NRA members will pay for its products as much as other consumers. In total, more than a dozen large corporations have already announced renunciation of the program of cooperation with the association of firearm owners.

The Association called such steps an attempt to "punish the members of the association by shameful demonstration of political and civil cowardice."

US observers note that this development of the situation has only been harming companies so far. Columbia Business School professor William Klepper said in an interview with CNN, "boards of directors already say it's bad for business." However, public discussions after the shooting in Florida are so intense that even the White House may change its opinion about the weapons lobby. Last week, Donald Trump instructed the Ministry of Justice to review the legal regime relating to firearms. It's about the so-called bump stock. These devices are sold legally, and any owner of a semi-automatic rifle can install it himself or go to the workshop, in fact changing his weapons into a full automatic. Free sale of fully automatic weapons is banned in the US since 1986. These devices were used last fall during the massacre in Las Vegas.